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But I had told her that I would sew her a case. I was intending that it would be a fairly simple design, similar to the crocheted one, with a flap that velcros closed.
So, wolf heads off to the fabric store.
There are supposed to be women in the fabric store who actually know what they are doing, right?
I described my intentions to the lady at the fabric cutting table. I had decided that any pouch should really have a goo-proof lining of some sort. So I asked if they had any sort of fusible material that would be waterproof. "No," says the counter drone, "We don't have anything like that." But there's this stuff, it's waterproof. She leads me to a section of the store I had already investigated ... bolts of overpriced (and really ugly) vinyl.
No, that's not what i was looking for. But I didn't tell her. I pretended to finger the fabrics, because that's what you do in fabric stores. Eventually she went away and left me alone.
Which is when I discovered a bolt of fusible vinyl. It's a thin vinyl coating that you iron on to a fabric to make it waterproof. How about that ... exactly what I was asking for, but I had to find it myself.
It's a freakin' specialty fabric store ... staff are not only supposed to know every single stinkin' thread in the place, but also what do to with it.
Oh well.
Clutching the bolt of stuff to my chest, I then went a-wandering looking for fabric to please a hippie.
I think I found some good stuff.
Now, bear in mind that I have no idea how to make a pattern, or how to put this thing together.
I knew the basic shape I was going for ... a rectangle.
And I foolishly decided that the flap should be pointy. Making things pointy in sewing can be a challenge. And I decided on a really narrow seam allowance of 1/4 inch (this translates to "not much margin for error).
Part of the adventure involved ironing the vinyl stuff onto the cotton I had chosen. Okay, adventure translates to "trying not to burn myself with hot plastic while also not bonding hot plastic to my ironing board." This step went surprisingly well.
I've never worked with slippery material before, so there were a couple false starts because the fabric wouldn't feed through the machine quite right, but that is why Dritz makes seam rippers.
I should have done a proper photoessay of the whole process, but sometimes it spoils the magic when you know how it happens, right? Which translates to "I was so focused on the process that I forgot." And focused, that translates to I was really frustrated and I would have thrown the camera off the balcony with the sewing machine.
But since I live on the first floor, it would have been an empty gesture.
So, I made a lot of stuff up as I went along, ended up with a really pointy point on the flap, and found a very cool button to camoflage where I attached the velcro spot.
I hope she likes it.
And I hope that she doesn't offer me another ion cleansing footbath session in return.
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